Photocopiers are used by millions of people every day to create printed copies of original documents. In a typical photocopier, the original document is photographed or scanned to create a latent image or digital data representing the document that can be used by a printing device or print engine to produce copies of the scanned document.
In recent years, the photocopying process has become increasingly more automated and efficient. Photocopier devices commonly come equipped with automated media transport paths. These paths transport blank media through the printing process of the photocopier and to output trays configured to hold the finished document copy or copies. In some photocopier devices, original document pages are manually placed on a scanning surface and removed from the scanning surface by a user. However, some of today's photocopier devices also use media transport paths to transport original documents, page by page, through the scanning process to an output tray that is separate from the output tray(s) to which the finished photocopies are transported.
Whether an original document is manually removed from the photocopier device or automatically transported through the photocopying device to an output tray, the original document and photocopies of the original document are generally kept separate throughout the photocopying process and end up in different locations after the copying process. As such, it is often the case that users forget to retrieve their original documents when photocopies are made. Forgotten or discarded original documents in a photocopier may result in unnecessary inconvenience, additional costs, and/or breaches of security.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.